


The Road to Forgiveness, or, How (Not) to Seduce Women While Wearing Heavily Stained Pink Aprons

by imadra_blue



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Banter, Canon - Video Game, Compilation Compliant, Developing Relationship, Drama, F/M, Humor, Inappropriate Humor, One Shot, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 14:18:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadra_blue/pseuds/imadra_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reno is just a working man trying to do his job.  Unfortunately, it's not always a job worth doing, but he's working on that.  So is Yuffie Kisaragi, apparently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road to Forgiveness, or, How (Not) to Seduce Women While Wearing Heavily Stained Pink Aprons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UEvangeline](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UEvangeline/gifts).



> Written for UEvangeline in the Rarepair Fest 2013. Takes place four years after the original game and two years after Advent Children. Many, many thanks to Erin C. for her beta reading and encouragement.

…

"Just another job done well, eh?" Reno said, flicking a piece of skull and brain matter off the shoulder of his tailored jacket.

"Sometimes," Rude said, wiping his bloody hands off on a white towel he found in the mark's bathroom, "I think you just want someone to forgive you."

Reno sneered and wiped his hands off on his jacket. He liked to live dangerously sometimes, and the look on Tseng's face when he realized how high the dry cleaning bill would be again this month would make satisfy that craving. "Why do I need someone to forgive me?" He gestured at the bloody corpse of Marcoh Tenten. Or was it Marcus Tenten? Or Marky Tendle? Fuck it. Reno would just write Marco Polo in the report. "I mean, that guy totally had it coming. He killed people."

"Based on that judgment, so do we."

"Well, of course we do. We're hired thugs. We've all done terrible things."

"Mm." Rude slipped back on his gloves and adjusted his sunglasses. "Some of us more than others."

Reno clicked his tongue and followed Rude out, bloody handprints soaking into his blue jacket. He never tried to pretend he didn't have it coming—maybe even more than the lowlifes Rufus sent them after lately. His old man had always said he was a piece of shit. How could someone's own father be wrong? It's like the old man had seen into the future and knew Reno would drop the plate on Sector 7.

Maybe that's why he had hit so hard.

…

"I've got a new job for you," President ShinRa said coolly. Not that he spoke any other way. Since his Geostigma had been cured, he'd ditched the wheelchair and the bandages and the blankets, and discovered cigarettes. They went great with his white suits and permanently bored expressions. Tseng stood next to him, occasionally fanning the smoke away. Combined with the minimal light that shone through the slatted windows, Reno half-expected the President wanted to start making drug deals or robbing banks.

"Oh, goody. What is it?"

"Atonement. I've decided you need it the most."

"Me? But I'm a sweetheart."

Tseng visibly rolled his eyes. Reno grinned at him.

The President took another drag and leaned forward, his golden hair sliding forward and his hands folding neatly on the desk. "You're going to Wutai, Reno. Alone. I want to make peace with them, in any way possible. You're just the man to do it."

"Me? Why?"

"If they don't kill you on sight," Tseng said, his tone as grave as ever, "then we know they're willing to deal with us."

…

Sometime over the last four years, Yuffie Kisaragi had grown a pair of the most amazing legs Reno had ever seen. They were long and slender, and distracting enough that she got a few good kicks in before he recovered his wits, such as they were.

"Hey, hey! Take it easy! I'm here on business!" Reno cried, diving behind a large rock before she tossed a full brace of shurikens or a limit break or something at him. He rubbed at his aching chest, where she had likely left footprints.

"That's the problem, you dirty rotten cocksucker!" she screamed at the top of her considerable lungs, tossing multiple shurikens at him. Or maybe the same one over and over. Reno wasn't about to look.

Reno winced and shook his head, tugging at his ears until they stopped ringing. "That's harsh. A man gets drunk off his ass and blows his boss once, and everyone wants to call him nasty names."

"What?" Yuffie asked, her tone bewildered. The sound of metal clinking against stone ceased.

Taking advantage of the rare pause in Yuffie's attempts to kill any ShinRa employee who dared set foot on her precious Wutai soil, Reno popped up from behind the rock and gave her his most sheepish grin. He practiced it in the mirror every other day--come review time, when speaking to the President, it had saved his job more times than one. "I said I was here on business. President ShinRa would like to make you and the rest of Wutai an offer."

"And why should I give a shit about ShinRa's offer?" Yuffie asked, dark eyes glinting like polished rocks. She put her hands on her slender hips. Reno took a moment to drag his eyes off her legs—she was wearing boots, and it made him feel weak in the knees.

Reno raised his empty hands, hoping she wouldn't notice his electrorod hiding in his sleeve. "You still like materia, right?"

…

"It's a solid offer," Godo Kisaragi admitted, his eyes glinting with the same greed that shone in his daughter's. He sat behind his desk in a position not entirely dissimilar from the President's when he last spoke to Reno. Only there was more lighting and no cigarette smoke, so Godo didn't give off the same shady drug lord air. "What's the catch?"

"No catch. The President just wants to pay his dues. It's our atonement for past crimes against Wutai."

"Past crimes—what about Sector 7?" Yuffie demanded, her marvelous legs propped up on her father's desk, her eyes still narrowed. "Tifa told me what you did. Why don't you atone to Denzel to someone? Wutai got off pretty light compared to that."

That stung more than it should have. Reno had to remember it was just a job, not anything personal. "Yeah, well, some things are easier to atone for. Any recommendations on how to start? It's not like we can fix that. The only guy I know who can come back from the dead just got killed again by your buddy Cloud. Also, he had this thing for destroying the entire universe. We're doing the best we can."

"Yeah, I got a few ideas on how you can start to make up for it," Yuffie said, tilting her head. She finally smiled at him, but it was the sort of smile that Reno imagined Sephiroth liked giving Cloud. He fought off a hard-on. He wondered if Cloud had to do that a lot.

"And we'll still take the materia," Godo quickly added, broad hands swiftly moving to sign the President's new contract.

…

"This isn't really my look. The color clashes with my hair. Am I cooking or something?" Reno smoothed down the pink apron that Yuffie had forced him to wear since they arrived in Edge. As people walking past them stared, he wondered if it stained easily.

Yuffie adjusted her halter top and smirked again. "No, you're going to help us rebuild Edge. The money ShinRa donated is one thing, but those hands of yours destroyed part of Midgar. Now they're gonna put part of Edge back together. Or no more deals."

Reno suddenly realized she was leading him to a construction site. No one else wore a pink apron. Everyone else had on sensible work clothes and hard hats. "Fine, fine, but why the apron?"

"Because I want you looking ridiculous. Work hard, or I'm telling Vincent."

"Yeah, I'm not afraid of—" Reno's blood suddenly ran cold. "—wait, did you say Vincent? As in Vincent Valentine?"

"Sure did."

Reno smiled and swallowed the urge to vomit. Valentine used to be a Turk. Cloud would only kill him. Reno didn't want to know what Valentine would do. Turks were nasty people. "Right. Where's the hammer and nails and shit?"

"Over there." Yuffie gestured at a work station filled with tools—and manned by the little brown-haired kid Cloud and Tifa had adopted. Denzel, Reno recalled. The boy stared at him with cold blue eyes.

Sighing, Reno gave Yuffie once last glance. "Are you sure I can't just kill some bad guys or monsters or something instead?"

"Nah. We got Cloud for that." Yuffie sauntered off, wiggling her cute little ass enough that Reno tripped over his feet on the way to the work station.

This was going to be a long job.

…

Reno had nearly lost an arm fitting in a beam that had descended too fast. His own blood stained his pink apron, and if it weren't for Yuffie using her new Cure materia, it might have been worse. He swung the arm, testing the newly healed flesh, feeling a familiar twinge that indicated the healing had worked.

The phone rang ominously, the ringtone indicating Rude was on the line. Reno answered quickly. "Hey, buddy, how're things going?"

"No, I'm not going to switch places with you."

"Ah, hell, Rude. You didn't even give me a chance to ask."

"Exactly. How're you doing, anyways?"

"Pretty much the same as always. Nearly buried under my work. Literally, I mean. A beam fell on my arm."

"Anything serious?"

"Nah. The ninja girl healed it."

"Yuffie Kisaragi, right?" Rude clucked. "Careful now."

"What? She's not underage anymore. She's twenty now. Legal even in Wutai."

"That's not what I was talking about. I doubt she'd let you touch her anyways. I was talking about that forgiveness thing you keep looking for. She's the most likely to give it. She was the least affected by you."

Reno scowled at his phone, wishing he could send nasty looks through the transmission. "Why do you keep thinking I'm even interested in that, you jerk? I was just doing my job!"

"That's why. Any man who defends himself by claiming it's just a job wants forgiveness."

"You were there, too. So what about you, Rude? What do you think about Sector 7?"

"It was just a job."

The dialtone suddenly rang in Reno's ear. Reno sighed and tucked his phone away before going back to work.

…

Somehow, Reno managed to get through the next month. His pink apron turned brown with blood and dirt, and he lost his goggles somewhere in the foundation. The new apartment building was built specifically for survivors of Sector 7. Most people didn't know who had pushed the button that had destroyed their home in Midgar, so as they started trickling inside to claim apartments, they didn't give Reno a second glance. Denzel nodded at Reno once, then disappeared with Tifa to have lunch. Reno would have liked lunch. He would have liked it a lot. But Tifa didn't cast him a second glance, and Reno suspected only spiky-headed blond men were allowed to have lunch with her.

To his surprise, when he looked up, Yuffie handed him a water bottle and a wrapped sandwich. Reno snatched it from her without thanks and tore into it.

"Asshole." Yuffie rolled her eyes and sat down beside him on the new street curb. She ate her own sandwich more slowly. Mostly because she had been "supervising" the project. And "recruiting." Not actually working. Reno didn't know half the things she did, but then, he reflected there was little point in being a ninja if everyone knew what you were up to.

"You did good work, actually," Yuffie said after she had finished her sandwich, eyeing the new building. It looked like all the other new buildings.

"Is that a compliment?" Reno eyed her warily. "What's wrong? Is Sephiroth back or something? Did he decide all redheads must die?"

"No." Yuffie's look of cool superiority faded before a fit of giggles. After regaining her composure, she studied Reno, a smile still on her face. That smile made her seem adorable enough to eat with a spoon.

"We're actually trying, you know. All of us." Reno glanced at the apartment building. Fifteen stories high, made of metal and gray stonework. He had snuck a red stone into a couple of bathrooms, in hopes someone might get pissy at a later point of time about how he had ruined their dreary color scheme. Edge was such a depressing place.

Yuffie nodded. "Seems like it."

"Heh." Reno adopted his sexiest grin, the lopsided one, and tilted his shoulders while also canting his hips. "You know, you're kind of cute, for a ninja."

Yuffie turned, her gaze raking over him up and down. "Did you throw your back out in the construction or something? Why are you sitting like that?"

Reno sighed. Somehow, his sexy poses always got him responses like that. Once, a girl had actually cast a Cure spell on him. He really didn't get it. His poses looked great in the mirror. "I was trying to seduce you."

"You really shouldn't. You're not any good at it."

"Whatever," Reno said grumpily, scowling.

"Though… you are pretty cute. For a Turk." Yuffie smirked again. "I've got more sandwiches back by my truck."

Reno stared. "Are you trying to seduce me with sandwiches?"

"Yes. Is it working?"

"Sure is. Let's go." Reno hopped up. "Can I take off the apron now?"

Yuffie bounced to her feet. "Not yet. It's part of your charm." She started leading him down the sidewalk to the parking lot.

Reno watched her bandana flutter in the wind and smiled. Sometimes, Reno had to admit, Rude was right. Not that he planned on telling him so.

After all, he had more important things to do. Like Yuffie Kisaragi, if the sandwich buffet went well.

…

_End._


End file.
